THE JEW OF MALTA
A monologue from the
play by Christopher
Marlowe
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Masterpieces of the English Drama. Ed. William Lyon
Phelps. New York: American Book Company, 1912. |
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- BARABAS: [Discovered in his counting house,
- With heaps of gold before him.]
- So that of thus much that return was made;
- And of the third part of the Persian ships
- There was the venture summ'd and satisfied.
- As for those Samnites, and the men of Uz,
- That brought my Spanish oils and wines of Greece,
- Here have I purs'd their paltry silverlings.
- Fie, what a trouble 'tis to count this trash!
- Well fare the Arabians, who so richly pay
- The things they traffic for with wedge of gold,
- Whereof a man may easily in a day
- Tell that which may maintain him all his life.
- The needy groom, that never finger'd groat,
- Would make a miracle of thus much coin;
- But he whose steel-barr'd coffers are cramm'd full,
- And all his life-time hath been tired,
- Wearying his fingers' ends with telling it,
- Would in his age he loath to labour so,
- And for a pound to sweat himself to death.
- Give me the merchants of the Indian mines,
- That trade in metal of the purest mould;
- The wealthy Moor, that in the eastern rocks
- Without control can pick his riches up,
- And in his house heap pearl like pebble stones,
- Receive them free, and sell them by the weight!
- Bags of fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts,
- Jacinths, hard topaz, grass-green emeralds,
- Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds,
- And seld-seen costly stones of so great price,
- As one of them, indifferently rated,
- And of a carat of this quantitiy,
- May serve, in peril of calamity,
- To ransom great kings from captivity.
- This is the ware wherein consists my wealth;
- And thus methinks should men of judgment frame
- Their means of traffic from the vulgar trade,
- And, as their wealth increaseth, so inclose
- Infinite riches in a little room.
MORE MONOLOGUES BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE |
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